A. Field of Invention
This invention generally relates to motor vehicles and more specifically relates to a fuel door that when opened interacts with a vibration damper made as a single part with the vehicle body or the fuel door to dampen vibrations.
B. Description of the Related Art
It is well known in the art for passenger vehicles to have a fuel tank which stores fuel used to operate the vehicle's engine. Typically a fuel filling pipe extends from the fuel tank up to an opening formed in the side of the vehicle's body. In order to access the top of the fuel filling pipe in order to fill the fuel tank with fuel, a fuel door is moved from a closed condition where access to the fuel filling pipe through the opening is prevented to an open condition where access to the fuel filling pipe can be achieved through the opening. Once the fuel door is opened, a cap can be removed from the outer end of the fuel filling pipe and fuel can then be added to the fuel filling pipe and thus to the fuel tank. Once the fuel tank is filled, the cap can be replaced and the fuel door can then be moved back to the closed condition.
With reference now to FIGS. 4 and 5, typically the fuel door 1 is moved between its closed condition and its open condition (open condition shown in FIG. 4) along arc 2 by pivoting or rotating the fuel door about a pivot axis 3. While such known fuel doors generally work well for their intended purpose, they have a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that when the fuel door 1 is opened, a contact surface 4 of the fuel door contacts a contact surface 5 of the vehicle body 6 causing a vibration. Given the materials used to make the contact surfaces 4 and 5 (typically both are made of a relatively hard plastic) the vibration may cause an audible noise that is undesirable.
What is needed and provided by this invention are apparatuses and methods that overcome this disadvantage.